Moderated mediating effects of gender among the components of critical thinking disposition in undergraduate students.

Critical thinking disposition (CTD), as a facet of the critical thinking (CT) framework, is regarded as the activation of critical thinking skills (CTS). Although studies regarding gender difference of CTD can be found, there is a scarcity of studies on the relationships among CTD components and their mediating effects concerning gender. Additionally, traditional gender comparison of latent means neglected the influence of scales, which leads to doubt about the results on whether the difference is caused by scales or gender characteristic distinction. Measurement invariance (MI) is suggested to be confirmed before performing comparisons. Previous research has had fewer MI results for CTD inventories. Thus, this study aims to analyze the gender equality of the Employer-Employee-Supported Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory (2ES-CTDI) as well as the moderated mediating effects of gender on the components of CTD among 661 Chinese undergraduates (Mage = 19.57; SD = 1.26) via MI and Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) by Mplus and STATA. The results found that (a) the scale has high reliability and validity for measuring undergraduates' CTD. MI findings indicated that the configural and metric models were achieved, and the scalar model identified the partial invariance by freeing the intercepts of indicators A5, C7, and C8; (b) Girls have stronger self-efficacy and habitual truth-digging disposition, whereas boys have higher instant judgment; (c) Instant judgment has a negative influence on habitual truth-digging with self-efficacy as the competitive partial mediator, in which, gender moderated the relationship between instant judgment and self-efficacy. These findings, theoretically, proved the stability of the CTD framework of 2ES-CTDI, and practically, call for instructors to pay closer attention to the gender role in CTD cultivation.

Online Assessment and Game-Based Development of Inductive Reasoning.

The aims of the study were (1) to develop a domain-general computer-based assessment tool for inductive reasoning and to empirically test the theoretical models of Klauer and Christou and Papageorgiou; and (2) to develop an online game to foster inductive reasoning through mathematical content and to investigate its effectiveness. The sample was drawn from fifth-grade students for the assessment (N = 267) along with the intervention study (N = 122). The online figurative test consisted of 54 items: nine items were developed for each of the six inductive reasoning processes. The digital game-based training program included 120 learning tasks embedded in mathematical content with differential feedback and instructional support. The test had good psychometric properties regarding reliabilities, means, and standard deviations. Confirmatory factor analyses revealed that the six processes of inductive reasoning and the three latent factors of Similarity, Dissimilarity, and Integration could be empirically confirmed. The training program was effective in general (corrected effect size = .38); however, the process of cross-classification was not developed significantly. Findings could contribute to a more detailed understanding of the structure and the modifiability of inductive reasoning processes and could reveal further insights into the nature of fluid intelligence.

Online Assessment of Morphological Awareness in Grades 2-4: Its Development and Relation to Reading Comprehension.

The aims of the study are to construct an online instrument to assess different aspects of morphological awareness and to examine its development and its relation to reading comprehension in grades 2-4 in Hungarian children. Altogether, 4134 students were tested. The online test evaluated inflectional, derivational, and compound morphological skills with five subtests. The instrument proved to be reliable. CFA examinations revealed that the five subtests were empirically distinguishable dimensions. Inflectional, derivational, and compound morphology as the three main dimensions of morphological awareness were also empirically supported by our data. Morphological awareness skills improved significantly and developed in parallel with reading skills throughout grades 2-4. The increase in the development of morphological awareness from grade 2 to grade 3 tends to be faster than the growth between grade 3 and 4. Positive moderate correlations were found between morphological skills and reading comprehension and the relationships seem to be stable throughout the three grades. The most significant predictor of reading comprehension is the Affix Identification for Nonwords subtest. Our study showed that morphological awareness could be assessed efficiently through online media and drew attention to the importance of morphological awareness in the development of reading comprehension and linguistic intelligence.

QCD Crossover at Finite Chemical Potential from Lattice Simulations.

We provide the most accurate results for the QCD transition line so far. We optimize the definition of the crossover temperature T_{c}, allowing for its very precise determination, and extrapolate from imaginary chemical potential up to real µ_{B}≈300 MeV. The definition of T_{c} adopted in this work is based on the observation that the chiral susceptibility as a function of the condensate is an almost universal curve at zero and imaginary µ_{B}. We obtain the parameters κ_{2}=0.0153(18) and κ_{4}=0.00032(67) as a continuum extrapolation based on N_{t}=10, 12, 16 lattices with physical quark masses. We also extrapolate the peak value of the chiral susceptibility and the width of the chiral transition along the crossover line. In fact, both of these are consistent with a constant function of µ_{B}. We see no sign of criticality in the explored range.